By Brian Sears SI chief statistician (94.86% of the time) 16 November 2012 The team that scores first in the Premier League wins almost 70 per cent of the time. That’s what this season’s statistics tells us, but the rule is turned on its head if we’re talking about Manchester United, Manchester City or Everton. […]

* By Alex Miller and Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 8 October 2012 Manchester United and Real Madrid have sold an average of 1.4m official replica shirts globally each year in the past five years – more than any other clubs in the world. The commercial giants of English and Spanish […]

By Brian Sears and Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 20 September 2012 It’s been the biggest domestic fixture in English football for the best part of four decades, and in terms of global interest in the two teams involved, it still is. Liverpool versus Manchester United remains a fixture that resonates, […]

By Brian Sears 30 August 2012 They roll from the tongues of Southampton fans like hallucinogenic recollections: three home league wins on the bounce against the mighty Manchester United, between April 1996 and January 1998. And what score lines they were: 3-1, 6-3 (that’s SIX-three) and, errm, 1-0. The point of this being what exactly? […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 28 August 2012 Manchester United’s manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who has been attracting headlines in recent days for his latest episode of banning a reporter for doing his job, is an autocrat on the brink of yet another record in his extraordinary career. Since taking […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 7 June 2012 WHEN Manchester United announced last week that they had 659 million followers and are thus “the most popular club in the most popular sport in the world”, the figures were met with widespread scepticism, even derision. But I can only speak for […]

By Brian Sears 20 April 2012 Manchester United just need to execute some classic top-of-the-table – win their last two home matches and draw their last two away games – to ensure they’re the champions of England for a 20th time, and 13 times in the Premier League era. Unlucky for everyone else. In the all-time table in the Premier League’s […]

By Brian Sears 15 March 2012 Accepted football wisdom already has it that Manchester United have an easier run-in than their main Premier League title rivals Manchester City. But Sportingintelligence analysis of all the remaining fixtures for all 20 teams now shows not only is that true but that United have the easiest run-in in […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 17 February 2012 A story about Liverpool fan Lenny Woods’ impending latest trip of many to Wembley to watch his club Liverpool prompted a lively Twitter debate about whether his 33 trips there to watch his club was a record. FOR THE MOST RECENT ALL-TIME […]

By Sportingintelligence 6 February 2012 In August 2010, as Facebook registered its 500 millionth active user, Sportingintelligence assessed the world’s ‘most popular’ sports teams by ‘Facebook fans’ – and Turkey’s Galatasaray came out on top. The ‘monetisation’ of sports fans via social media remains in its infancy. But in a rapidly changing multi-media world, we examined […]